【英语生活】都是远景惹的祸

Before the recent fuss about missing personal data and Northern Rock, the main criticism of Gordon Brown inside the Labour party was that he had not yet set out a vision of where he wanted to take the country. Those following the debate were not slow to recall the confession of President George Bush senior that he was not very good at “this vision thing”. Yet he comes out very favourably compared with his son, the present president, who has all too much vision of the wrong kind.You might expect Arthur Schlesinger, the liberal Democrat court historian, to have been all in favour of vision. In fact, he was very cautious. After praising the visions of Roosevelt, Jefferson, Lincoln and one or two others, he warned that visions were not necessarily good things. Hitler and Stalin had visions. Indeed, Hitler had a vision of a Reich that would last 1,000 years. Bush junior had a vision of Iraq transformed under American sponsorship into a Jeffersonian democracy acting as a beacon to the Islamic world. By contrast, “Bush the elder was a moderate as president and he did not harm the republic”.

The Bible has a lot to say about vision. For instance: “Man does not live by bread alone” and “Where there is no vision the people perish”. But nowhere does it say that the vision must come from political rulers. That task was most often given to the prophets. There is undoubtedly a place for both role models and preachers. But these are not necessarily functions of government. Harold Macmillan once said that if people were looking for a moral lead they should look to the archbishops rather than to politicians.

The main jobs of governments are first and foremost to promote the internal and external security of their populations and second to provide those services that are best provided collectively rather than by private enterprise or by voluntary means.

Third, and more controversially, they should carefully try to distribute income and property to those who have been handed a bad deal by the luck of heredity and the market.

There is a fourth task: from time to time bringing up to date the laws by which citizens regulate their relations with each other. But there is no reason this task should fall to the central organ known as “the government”. It could equally fall to a separately elected legislature, as it does to some extent in the US.

These tasks may seem prosaic compared with an oratorical summons to some utopian uplands. But how rarely are they performed successfully. The formulation in the US Declaration of Independence that governments are instituted to secure the right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” may seem more inspiring. But as long as adults are left to pursue their happiness in their own way there is no inconsistency.

American political speechwriters are nearly all prepared to go into vision mode at the drop of a hat. One of their stock formulas is known in the trade as “I Sees”. It goes like this:

“I see an America bold and free . . .

“I see an America where the strong help the weak . . .

“I see an America respected the world over . . . ”

And so on, according to taste.

The idea is to come out with vague and noble sentiments with which no one can disagree, but which do not commit anyone to specific action. There are also increasingly fashionable corporate visions usually known as “mission statements” that help to keep speechwriters in employment, but which remind me of Adam Smith's statement: “I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good.”

There are exceptions to most generalisations, including my scepticism about visions. There are certain morally intense moments in the life of a nation, such as the US after the battle of Gettysburg or the UK in the 1940 Battle of Britain, when it is helpful to have an idealistic statement of the cause for which all the sacrifices are being made; and we are fortunate if there is a Lincoln or a Churchill who can put the appropriate sentiments into elevated prose.

Thucydides, the Greek historian, lived at a time when it was professionally respectable to put into the mouth of a leading political actor words appropriate to a defining occasion. Hence Pericles' funeral speech after the defeat of the Persians at the battle of Thermopylae. It is a far cry from these rare examples to the mundane “vision” which a modern politician can extract any day from an aide.

It is time to come back to the problems of Gordon Brown. He seems to me to have two overriding passions. One is an urge to better the condition of the poorest countries, whose inhabitants subsist on a couple of dollars a day and lack the elementary decencies of hygiene and elementary schooling. The other is to eliminate child poverty in the UK. Both these objectives are admirable, however much one may want to argue with him over the means. Beyond that he is a conventional politician trying to compromise between the needs of competent government and the tricks of the political trade. There is nothing to gain from getting a speechwriter to wrap all this up in some cloudy and unconvincing “vision”.

在最近有关个人数据丢失和北岩(Northern Rock)事件的争议爆发之前，英国工党(Labour party)内部对戈登•布朗(Gordon Brown)的主要批评是，他尚未勾画一个“想把英国带向何处”的远景。那些关注这场争论的人不难回忆起，美国前总统老布什(George Bush)曾坦言，他不擅长“这种远景方面的事情”。但与他的儿子——美国现任总统小布什相比，他算是非常不错了：小布什设定了太多错误的远景。人们或许会认为，自由派民主党“御用历史学家”亚瑟•施莱辛格(Arthur Schlesinger)一直赞成这种远景。但实际上，他在这方面非常谨慎。在表扬过罗斯福(Roosevelt)、杰斐逊(Jefferson)、林肯(Lincoln)和其他一、两位总统的远景之后，他警告称，远景并不一定是好东西。希特勒(Hitler)和斯大林(Stalin)也有远景。实际上，希特勒的远景是建立一个将持续1000年的德意志帝国。小布什的远景是，在美国的支持下，将伊拉克变成一个杰斐逊式的民主社会，充当伊斯兰世界的灯塔。与之相反，“作为总统，老布什是个温和派，没有伤害这个共和国。”

圣经中拥有大量关于远景的内容。例如：“人不仅仅靠面包活着”和“没有远景的地方，人就将灭亡”。但圣经中从未说过，远景必须来自于政治统治者。在大多数情况下，这项任务通常赋予先知。榜样和传教士无疑会占据一席之地。但这些并不一定是政府的职能。英国前首相哈罗德•麦克米伦(Harold Macmillan)曾经说过，如果人们希望寻找一位道德领袖，他们应当将目光投向大主教，而非政治家。

政府首当其冲的要务，是提高公民在国内和国外的安全。其次是提供那些最好集体提供、而非由私人企业或者通过志愿手段提供的服务。

第三，也是更有争议的一点，就是它们应当努力将收入和房产分配给那些在家世方面和在市场活动中处于劣势的人群。

政府的第四项任务是：经常更新那些公民赖以规范彼此关系的法律。但这项任务没有理由应当落到“政府”这个中央机关头上。它可以平均分配到单独选举的立法机构身上——正如美国在一定程度上所做的那样。

与号召人们奔向乌托邦高地这样宏伟的远景相比，这些任务似乎颇为平凡。但各国政府却很少能够成功完成这些任务。美国《独立宣言》(Declaration of Independence)明确表示，组建政府的目的是保证人们“生存、自由和追求幸福”的权利。这种宣言看上去似乎更加鼓舞人心，但只要成年人能够以自己的方式追求他们的幸福，就不会存在矛盾。

美国政治演讲稿撰写人几乎随时准备进入远景模式。他们常用的公式之一就是业内所谓的“我看到了”(I Sees)。例如：

“我看到了一个勇敢和自由的美国……”

“我看到了一个强者帮助弱者的美国……”

“我看到了一个受到全世界尊重的美国……”

根据演讲人的品位，还有许多类似的语句。

他们的理念就是想出模糊、高尚、没有人能反对的观点，但又不使任何人承诺采取任何特定的措施。企业远景现在也日益流行起来，它们的名字通常是“使命声明”，演讲稿撰写人以此谋生，但他们让我想起了亚当•斯密(Adam Smith)的话：“我从来不知道那些假装为公众谋利益的人做过什么好事。”

对于多数泛泛化的远景，以及我对远景的怀疑态度，也有例外。在一国的历史中，必定会有一些在精神上非常强烈的时刻，例如葛底斯堡战役之后的美国，或者1940年不列颠战役中的英国。在这些时候，为所有为之牺牲的事业找一个理想化的声明是有益的。如果有林肯或者丘吉尔这样的人能将恰当的观点寓于严肃的散文之中，我们就更幸运了。

在希腊历史学家修西得底斯(Thucydides)生活的时代，为政治领袖撰写在特定场合发表的演讲词，是一个受人尊敬的职业。因此，也就有了希波战争的塞莫皮莱战役之后，伯里克利(Pericles)所发表的葬礼演讲了。这些演讲属于稀世范例，远与现代政治家随时可以从助手那里拿到的平凡“远景”所能比拟。

现在回到戈登•布朗的问题。在我看来，他在两个问题上有着压倒一切的激情。第一是改善最贫穷国家的境况。这些国家的人民每天的生活费只有几美元，缺乏基本医疗卫生保障和基础教育。第二是减轻英国儿童的贫困状况。这两项目标都令人敬仰，但是，人们可能希望在达到目标的手段上与其争论一番。除此之外，他是一位传统的政治家，试图在称职政府的需要和政治交易的伎俩之间寻求妥协。让一位演讲撰稿人将所有这些包装进某种模糊且不令人信服的“远景”，没有什么好处。

译者/何黎